


I'm Am Already Dead

by princessoftheworlds



Series: It's not a crime to love what you cannot explain [7]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV), iZombie (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6577321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a massacre at a boat party on Lake Washington, Caroline Forbes wakes up as a zombie, and her life turns upside down. She quits her medical residency and joins a morgue in the basement of a police station, using visions of victims from the brains she eats to help solve crimes. Now, if she could only stop remembering the blue-eyed Brit who scratched her at the boat party and turned her into a zombie...</p><p>Day Six of Spring Klaroline AU Week 2016</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Am Already Dead

Caroline Forbes didn’t want to even come to the Lake Washington boat party.

When her colleague from her medical residency, April Young, invited her to the party, Caroline initially refused. Matt, her stubbornly-kind and loyal fiancée, convinced her to go.

Once we’re married, he said, you’ll be tied down to me. Go out and enjoy yourself for once. You wring yourself out too much, working and studying 24/7.

So she came to the party.

And it turned into a massacre.

Like an actual massacre.

A brain-bashing, people-trampling, jumping-overboard kind of massacre.

That brain-bashing she mentioned? Actual brain-bashing.

Caroline was serious. People froze, their eyes morphing red, and then jumped upon the nearest alive human in a frenzy and began bashing their brains out, literally taking out chunks of brain out and eating it. Like zombies.

The surviving victims were fleeing, rocking the boat as they searched for hiding places or exits onto the dock. But most of them were being pulled back by these zombie-things and pinned to the ground in preparation for brain-bashing.

So Caroline did what any normal sane person would do.

She dived overboard the boat. But, just as she did so? A man scratched her arm. The blue-eyed, blond-curled man who flirted with her twenty minutes ago in a sinful British accent and then offered her Utopium, the newest recreational pleasure drug in Seattle, only for Caroline to immediately reject him. The same man whose eyes turned ferocious red as he sliced a line down Caroline’s inner arm.

When she finally hit the water with a silent splash, it overwhelmed her, frigid and turbulent, and sank her into the darkness.

When Caroline awoke in a black body bag, water-logged and skin ashen, a large streak of white running through her perfect blond curls, she frightened the EMT who became distraught over body-bagging a living girl.

Caroline, though, knew two things.

A: There was a long, white, angry puckered scar on the inside of her arm, contrasting with her skin that was gradually lightening in splotches.

B: She had a sudden hankering for brains.

That had been six months ago.

XXX

There is a loud clattering in her apartment’s kitchen as Caroline, disturbed from her sleep, gets out of bed and stumbles to the living room, blearily rubbing her eyes with exhaustion.

In her kitchen, she finds her mother, best friend and roommate Bonnie, her teenage sister Margaret, and her ex-fiancée rummaging through Caroline’s meticulously-organized cabinets and refrigerator. They all turn to gaze at Caroline as she arrives in the room.

Caroline stares at her little family in apprehension before glancing down at her own self. They are all polished and dressed smartly, Liz in her pantsuit for her job as a hospital administrator at Seattle General Hospital, Bonnie in dress pants and a crème blouse cut to reveal hints of her mocha skin for her defense attorney job, Margaret in a sundress as the typical teenage girl, and Matt dressed casually in jeans and a button-up for his job as a social worker. Caroline, however, has pale blond hair in vicious tangles and slouches in a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

“Mom, Maggie, Bon, Matt, what are you guys doing here?” she asks in confusion as Liz pulls pots and pans out of the dishwasher.

“I live here,” Bonnie reminds Caroline who shakes her off with a subdued frown.

“It’s Potluck Tuesday,” her mother exclaims with false enthusiasm. “We gathered everyone here today to eat!”

“It’s Wednesday,” Caroline replies dryly. She turns to her younger sister. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

Maggie shrugs without glancing up from rapidly texting on her phone. “It’s spring break.” She does look up now and locks sincere blue eyes with Caroline, smiling slightly.

“Fine,” Bonnie sighs, gazing at Matt for assistance who offers her a feeble grin in return. “This is an intervention.”

“An intervention,” Caroline repeats suspiciously. “For what?”

“For you,” Liz responds smoothly, concern glimmering in her azure eyes. “You have changed, considerably, since you attended that Lake Washington boat massacre. What happened at that party?”

Caroline shivers at the mention of the party, hackles rising as she becomes suddenly defensive. “It’s PTSD. I have survivor’s guilt. The last therapist you made me see told me that before I walked out of the appointment. And everyone knows what happened at the party.” She pauses to take a deep breath, her fists clenching by her side. “A bunch of druggies got high, grabbed guns, and began shooting up the place,” she explains monotonously, repeating what she had been saying since the days after the incident.

“Yes, but…” Liz hesitates. Matt standing by her side has remained silent thus far, mouth twisted into a subtle frown.

Bonnie slams a plate on the kitchen island with more force than required. “You used to be ambitious, Caroline. You were happy, a high-achiever, brilliant. Now, all you do is laze around and occasionally do the laundry.” Her jade eyes are narrowing in frustration, her delicate nose flaring in disgust.

Caroline’s mother nods her head in agreement. “We love you, Caroline, and are extremely concerned for you. Since the boat massacre, you quit your residency, took up a goth look,” Liz gestures at Caroline’s practically white hair and paler-than-pale skin, “gave up your friends, broke off your engagement with Matt,” both Matt and Caroline wince, “and took up a job at the morgue of all places. What’s going on?”

“For your knowledge,” Matt states suddenly, his sincere gaze turning to Caroline. “I was not made aware that we would be bringing the topic of the engagement up.”

“Whatever.” Caroline shakes her head apathetically, brushing hair back from her eyes. “I have to go. To get ready. For my job. At the morgue.”

XXX

She holds the drill in one hand, the other shoving her protective goggle onto her eyes and straightening her white lab coat before holding the corpse down and raising the bone saw to the deceased male’s head.

After a little splatter of blood, Caroline lifts the brain out of the skull casing, pink and squishy in all its glory. She weighs it out a scale before dropping it into a bowl and carrying it to the little kitchen nook in a corner of the basement morgue. She washes the brain off, slicing it like one would to any other regular meat, sautés the brain with some onions and carrots and kale, sets the dish into an opaque Tupperware container, and finally dumps about a pound of Tabasco hot sauce in the container.

As Caroline settles into a chair near the entrance of the morgue, she digs into her meal with a knife, slurping as the nearly-tasteless meal fills her stomach.

“I knew it,” comes the accented and triumphant voice of her boss, Dr. Enzo St. John. “You are a zombie!”

Startled, Caroline slams the lid on the container and sets it behind her, shielding it with her body. Her azure eyes grow wide and alarmed for a moment before attempting to maintain a normal façade. “Wow, Enzo,” she chortles nervously. “I mean, working in a morgue does indeed drive you crazy with the silence and isolation, but I didn’t know that you were crazy enough to start creating conspiracy theories.”

Enzo smirks in response, his dark eyes passionate and gleaming. “Caroline, what do you take me for? I am a medical examiner in the morgue. I used to work in the CDC. I can make connections between corpses missing brains on your shifts and your sudden mood swings.” He sighs heavily in disappointment. “I had hoped you would tell me before I was forced to confront you.”

“Seriously, though. Zombies? Missing brains?” She laughs hesitantly, trying to pass the conversation off as a joke. “Wait, you used to work for the CDC.”

“Yes,” Enzo confirms. “I indeed did. Until they fired me for claiming that a zombie apocalypse was inevitable. Dammit!” He kicks the counter with a boot-clad foot before groaning in pain. “Quit trying to change the subject, Caroline. You’re a zombie. I know you’re a zombie.”

She bites her lip, considering her options. Finally, she blurts out, “Fine! I’m a zombie,” Enzo’s lips split into a cheery grin, “but you can’t tell anyone.” Her eyes narrow grimly. “You can’t tell anyone, okay?” she warns Enzo.

“I promise, Gorgeous. I won’t. I know how grave this would be if it was revealed to the world that zombies exist.” His gaze turns sober. “How did this happen anyway? I assume that it has something to do with the Lake Washington boat massacre.”

“How do you know about that?” Caroline gapes at him in bewilderment.

“I make it my business to personally vet any potential employee.”

“You background-checked me?” she yelps in surprise.

“I had to,” Enzo reassured her. “It’s a con of working for the Seattle Police Department. Or any police department for that matter. Now, anyway, I had a buddy still at the CDC who examined one of the bodies from the massacre who told me about some unusual traits in most of the bodies. Naturally, they kept this hushed up. So I have some theories. How did you escape the massacre?”

Caroline sighs in defeat. “I jumped overboard and then woke up in a body bag. Before that, some guy scratched me. I saw people, feeding on brains and raging out inhumanly. Like…”

“Like zombie?” Enzo offers.

“Yes. Their eyes turned red, and they were just in a frenzied state. Pure adrenaline, it seemed.” She brushes crumbs off the plastic counter. “The guy who scratched me, his eyes turned red, too.”

“Interesting,” Enzo mutters. “If you turned into a zombie because you were scratched means that zombie-ness is transferable, like a disease.”

“I prefer to think of it as a virus,” Caroline admits.

“If it is to be a virus, it does not appear to be spread through skin-contact nor does it appear to be air-borne. It must be transmitted sexually or through body fluids such as blood or saliva.”

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly. “I broke my engagement off to protect my fiancée. I didn’t want to place him at risk because of me.”

“But if it’s a virus,” Enzo concludes. “There must be a cure.”

“Really?” Caroline gasps. “I thought that I would be stuck like this forever. A cure never even occurred to me.” Her voice stutters towards the end of her words.

“If a little bit of research, I can begin work on creating a cure for you.” Hastily, he adds, “For humanity too. For humanity’s sake. A zombie apocalypse would be dreadful, Gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” Caroline whispers tiredly.

“Don’t thank me. Thank yourself. You are the most interesting thing to happen to this little morgue in ages. The police barely ever come down here.” Enzo grabs a notepad and pen, hovering the pen above the paper in anticipation. “I need you to answer my questions as accurately as you can, Gorgeous.”

Silently, Caroline nods, bracing herself for intrusive questioning.

“Describe your immediate moments after you woke up in the body bag,” Enzo orders authoritatively.

“Umm,” she hesitates. “I woke up, and I knew something was different. I felt different, slower, sluggish. I could think and breathe and see, everything seemed normal. But there was this urge…”

“For brains?” he offers, scribbling with the pen rapidly.

“Yeah.” She lifts her Tupperware container and moves to place it in the refrigerator. “It wasn’t overwhelming, but it was there. I managed to sneak some brains out of a corpse in a body bag, that was enough for then. After that, I did not do anything for a week. I waited and returned to the hospital for my residency. But, soon I found myself in the hospital morgue, stealing brains…” Caroline trails off ashamedly.

“And you realized that you needed brains as nutrition,” Enzo assumes. “So you quit your residency and,” here he pauses admiringly, “you joined the morgue here to sneak brains. Quite brilliant, Gorgeous. And discrete.”

“That’s the gist of it.” Caroline smiles feebly, “but there’s more.”

“I’d thought so.” Enzo flips to a clean sheet. “Enlighten me.”

“I’m different-”

“No!” Enzo deadpans sarcastically.

She glares at him in mock-rage before continuing, “I lost aspects of my personality. I used to be ambitious, a people-pleaser, neurotic, determined, focused. Now, I feel dull, hollow, a void that can only be filled by eating brains.”

“Why?”

There is an audible pause as Caroline delays the inevitable as long as she can. She drums her fingers across the edge of the kitchen counter, drawing swirls with a lone finger in the dust settled on the surface. “When I eat a brain,” she explains slowly, “I take on aspects on the brain, of the brain’s personality. I’m like a sponge, I guess you could say. I also get flashes, glimpses of their memories. It’s quite random.”

“So,” he hums thoughtfully, “last week when you were always yawning and wide-awake but drinking three cups of coffee after each meal…”

“I was on that one infamous tech blogger’s insomniac brains. Tina Fell, former beauty queen and tech enthusiast. She was mowed down by a motorcyclist in a hit-and-run accident.” Caroline shudders in recollection. “I had flashes of her last moments. Gave me nightmares.”

“What else?” he asks eagerly. “What about your senses? Do you have enhanced speed or strength or anything?”

“Not really,” she admits when Enzo’s face falls. “I mean, my taste buds are so dulled that I need a bucket load of hot sauce to even taste anything, and I can’t feel pain as anything but a pinch. But I do bleed.”

“What do you mean that you cannot feel pain?”

“I sliced my finger once while slicing carrots. It was a deep cut, to the bone, but it felt like a scratch. It was gone in hours anyway.”

“Incredible,” Enzo breathes slowly. “You have enhanced healing and a high threshold for pain. Continue.”

“There’s one more thing,” she says sheepishly. “When I feel threatened, I get overwhelmed, like a sudden surge of adrenaline. My eyes turn red, and I have increased strength and speed. It’s like an uncontrollable high, but I’m working out it…”

Caroline’s cut off by a trail of footsteps echoing down the stairs of the morgue as a man comes into view of Enzo and Caroline.

He is middle-aged with dusty-blond hair, light blue eyes, and tanned skin, laugh lines crinkling around his eyes, frown lines etched into his forehead. “Hey,” he says to the two medical examiners. “My name’s Detective Alaric Saltzman. Just transferred from Vice to Homicide. I’m looking for Dr. St. John.”

“I am Dr. Enzo St. John,” Enzo steps forward to shake hands with the detective, then turning to Caroline, he explains, “This is Assistant Medical Examiner Caroline Forbes.”

“Pleased to meet you. Call me Alaric.” Detective Saltzman shakes Caroline’s hand with a firm, warm grip that feels alien against her cool skin. He turns his attention back to Enzo. “Dr. St. John, I’m here for a body, a woman who was stabbed to death.”

“Oh, yes. Her.” Wincing, Enzo strides to the giant metal freezer of drawers, unlocking one with a set of keys from his pocket. He pulls the drawer out with a loud clang, reading the tag off. “Katerina Petrova, 27. Cause of death: Multiple stabs to the chest. She bled out in minutes.”

“Also known as Katherine Pierce,” Alaric adds, watching Enzo as he carts the body to where the detective and Caroline stand. “She was a con woman, a very good one. She would manipulate wealthy clients from California to Washington, make them fall in love with her, give her control of a good chunk of their wealthy and property. Just as they did, boom! She would vanish with their money. She never used aliases, though she had a few.”

“Then why couldn’t anyone catch her?” Caroline asks curiously.

Detective Saltzman shrugs nonchalantly. “She had some very loyal informants. Keep herself on top of everything. Guess this time she bit off more than she could chew.” He reaches into his jacket to retrieve two headshots, displaying them to Caroline and Enzo. “Stefan and Damon Salvatore, heard of them?”

The left picture displays a handsome young man with bronze hair, tanned skin, olive-green eyes, and a square jaw. The other displays a slightly older man with dark hair, cerulean eyes, olive skin, and a chiseled nose. Both share the same wide forehead and large ears.

“The bachelor brothers who run Salvatore Pharmaceuticals? The millionaires?” she recalls in confusion, brows wrinkling in concentration.

“Yes,” Alaric confirms. “Stefan, 24, and Damon, 31, run their family company, a centuries-old Seattle-based pharmaceutical company. It previously was run by their deceased father Giuseppe Salvatore.”

Enzo’s nose flares in disgust. “Didn’t their mother run off with some man? It was all over the papers a couple years ago,” he says defensive when Caroline stares at him with surprise.

“Lily Salvatore left her family for Julian DuPont, a LA-based artist.” Alaric examines the body for a moment. “She was quite beautiful, apparently. Very cunning. Anyways, six months ago, the Salvatore brothers went Katherine at a gala, and they were quite taken with her. Hence began a twisty game of cat and mouse until both brothers fell in love with her. Recently, Damon proposed to her with the Moonstone Ring, a large chunk of polished moonstone set into a silver frame. Rumored to be made in England in 1492, it is worth four million dollars.”

Enzo whistles, a sharp sound that slices through the silence in the morgue and causes Caroline to jump in alarm. “That’s more than I make in two years,” he explains admiringly.

Ignoring the medical examiner, Detective Saltzman continues, “Katherine disappeared with the ring for a day, but then she was found in the Salvatore Boardinghouse by both brothers. They claimed that they were returning from a golfing trip, but their alibi’s been confirmed. It’s rock solid.”

“But the ring still missing,” Caroline concludes.

“Correct.” Saltzman reaches into his jacket again. “I have a picture of her pre-death if it helps.” He slides the sheet over to Caroline who examines it.

Katherine Pierce, formerly Katerina Petrova, is a gorgeous olive-skinned woman with dark hair in heavy curls, seductive doe eyes, and sharp cheekbones.

Upon Caroline taking one look at her, the world slows and dims considerably as Caroline freezes and is swept forward in a vision.

_“No!” a woman who Caroline recognizes as a live Katherine Pierce screams in rage, slinging a crystal decanter full of amber whiskey at a wall. It shatters with a loud crash, shards and liquid sliding to the oak floor._

_The recipient of Katherine’s anger, a woman nearly identical to her except for kinder doe eyes and subtler cheekbones and dark hair hanging loose and straight, winces. “But Katerina!” she protests, her voice taking on a light musical accent when she says Katherine’s biological name. “I love him!”_

_“Which one?” Katherine growls. When the other woman does not answer, she repeats more forcefully, “Which one, Elena? Stefan or Damon?”_

_Elena bows her head in shame. “Both of them, Katerina,” she whispers demurely. “Stefan and Damon.”_

_“You cannot.” Katherine shakes her head in clear refusal._

_“I love them both, Katerina.”_

_“I KNOW!” Katherine swivels around, face contorted almost inhumanly. “I know what love is! I know more of what love is than you do, little sister! I know sacrifice, something you do not!”_

_“I am sorry about Na-” Elena attempts to say._

_“DON’T YOU TALK TO ME ABOUT NADIA!” Katherine roars in fury. “Nadia was all I had of Silas! But she was torn from my arms upon birth, because you could not keep your fat lips shut! Perfect, little demure Elena, the twin everyone preferred to bold, rebellious Katerina! The daughter who always got what she wanted, always took what her sister wanted! I carved out one glimpse of happiness in my disgusting life. And guess what? You took that too!”_

_“I’m sorry about Nadia,” Elena repeats, hidden notes of steel to her voice. “But Papa would have found out one way or another if I had not told him.”_

_Katherine sighs heavily, shoulders set tensely. She abandons her anger, attempting for another method to reach her sister’s logic. “We have conned dozens of men, even some women. We have the Moonstone Ring. Let’s just leave. Run away. We’ll sell the ring and move back to Europe. Paris, think of it. You’ve always wanted to go to the Colosseum. The Salvatores will be a bad fairytale by then.”_

_“No, Katerina,” Elena replies with determination, her eyes narrowing darkly. “I will not leave Damon and Stefan behind.”_

_“Elena,” Katherine warns. “Give me that ring.”_

_“No-”_

“Caroline!”

At the sound of her own name, Caroline jolts back to the land of the present, gasping loudly, heart racing like she had run a mile. She notices Alaric staring at her in confusion and turns to him, rambling, “Katherine, no, Katerina Petrova. She’s Bulgarian. She-she has a twin sister named Elena. Elena Gilbert, that’s her alias. Her full biological name is Elena Petrova. She and her sister were staying in a hotel somewhere in Seattle.”

Alaric gapes at her. “What? How do you know all this? Is this true?” He gazes at Caroline expectantly.

She ignores him, pleading, “Check my information out, please. I think Elena killed her sister.”

“Elena Petrova was thought to be one of Katherine’s aliases,” he pauses thoughtfully, “but how do you know all this?” he demands authoritatively.

“Umm…” Caroline stares at Alaric blankly, mind too numb to search for a quick lie or half-truth or even a retort.

“She’s psychic,” Enzo blurts out suddenly.

“What?” Alaric and Caroline cry in alarm, Alaric turning to glare at Caroline.

Quickly, Caroline jumps aboard Enzo’s explanation. “Yes,” she confirms weakly. “I’m psychic, have been since I was young. I don’t know how, but I just get these visions. It’s very difficult to explain, Alaric. Please just check the tip out.”

“Fine,” the detective agrees cautiously, backing out of the morgue and heading upstairs, still eyeing Caroline in confusion and suspicion.

Once he’s gone, Caroline turns on Enzo in frustration. “What was that for?” she exclaims.

“You were standing, there, Gorgeous,” Enzo states, raking a hand through his dark gelled hair. “Like a statue, blubbering. I saved your ass. By the way, I’m going to assume that that tidbit of knowledge was from your con woman brain.”

“But, but,” she blubbers in bewilderment.

“I saved your ass,” Enzo repeats. “Thank me later.”

XXX

Surprise, surprise. Caroline’s tip pays off, proven accurate when Alaric drags a nearly-identical Katherine doppelganger to the station and positions Caroline in the interrogation room with him.

It appears that Katherine was a serious kleptomaniac though. Every moment Caroline stops by a desk in the police station, she is urged to scoop up a stapler or pen and drop it into her purse.

Elena finally cracks, admitting to the theft and murder. “I fell in love with both the brothers. I wanted to return the ring, but Katherine wouldn’t let me,” she sobs, her words nearly indistinguishable.

“So you murdered her,” Alaric concludes. “Your only true family, your only sister, your twin. The only person you knew in this godforsaken country when your uncle shipped you and Katerina here illegally. You murdered your beloved sister, because you fell in love with two notorious American heart-breakers.”

“Yes.” Elena only sobs harder. “But Stefan, Damon, and my love was real. It was the purest emotion I had ever felt, the most certain thing I knew in my heart.”

“The ring has been returned to the brothers, and they will testify against you in court. Seems they didn’t love you enough.” Alaric raises a thick eyebrow apathetically at the distraught girl. “I’m curious. How did your little routine work? You know, the whole twins thing.”

“One of us would seduce the man, usually Katerina, occasionally me. We would alternate covers if necessary, pretend to be each other. The other would run the background work necessary, the hacking, the false documents. That was usually me,” Elena explains, her sniffles grow louder until Alaric hands her a box of Kleenex.

Unable to resist herself, Caroline blurts out, “Who’s Nadia?”

“Huh?” Elena’s head shoots up, gazing at Caroline through blurry eyes.

“Who is Nadia? Who is Silas?” Caroline repeats.

“How do you know…?” Elena shakes her head in defeat, blowing her nose miserably before replying. “Silas was Katherine’s older boyfriend when we were sixteen. He was seven years older than us, in with the Russian mob. Our father was the head of a rival mob family, the Travelers, and despised Silas. He had Silas killed. When Katerina found she was with Silas’ child, I begged her to go tell Papa, but she refused and convinced Papa to send her away on a vacation, to Russia to live on her own for a while. I could not take lying to Papa anymore so I told him. Papa forced Katerina to come back and when she gave birth, he tore the baby girl she named Nadia from her arms and sent her to be adopted by an unknown family in Ukraine. Then he sent Katerina and I to the United States.”

“Wow,” Alaric murmurs for a moment. “That is quite some tale. Enjoy telling it in prison.” Caroline and he watch as Elena Petrova is carted off by a couple of uniformed officers. Then he turns to Caroline seriously and says, “Your hunch was right about her. How did you know?”

Unsure of how to reply, she shrugs causally and replies, “I told you. I’m psychic.”

“I guess.” Alaric shakes his head in doubt, but he questions her no longer. Handing her a white business card, he orders, “If you ever have another vision pertaining to a case, call me.”

“Sure,” she agrees, tucking the card into her wallet. As she leaves the station, she makes a point to stop and return all the items she stole, resisting the urge to collect a shiny gold pen from the front desk.

XXX

Her next brain is a former soldier who died in a car accident and suffered from PTSD, which Caroline regrets eating tremendously when the nightmares begin.

_She’s darting through a maze of dark alleys, breath coming in harsh pants as her lungs and upper thighs ache dully. She is herself now, Caroline._

_This is her own nightmare._

_The monster chasing her can be heard from his lumbering footsteps and similar echoing lack of breath and gasps. He growls._

_And Caroline only runs faster, her heart skipping beats._

_Faster and faster they run, ploughing only further into the darkness._

_Once Caroline stumbles, and the closeness of the beast’s feet scraping against stone spur her on._

_Finally, Caroline reaches a river, an expanse of darkness that gapes into a void, a tide barely audible over her own loud breathing. She swirls around to face the monster._

_“Hello, sweetheart,” he says in a sinful accent, wicked smirk slow to spread on his crimson lips. “It’s been a while.” His dark blue eyes flare with sudden red._

_Eager to get away, Caroline forgets where she is and steps backwards, falling before she sinks into the frigid, dark water._

_She is drowning again, and soon she will wake, streak of white running through her hair, skin paler than pale._

Caroline jumps against her headboard, banging her head, as she awakens. The bed is damp from her sweat, and if she places a hand over her chest, she can feel her heart racing like an engine.

“Brilliant!” she murmurs in apprehension. “Just brilliant!”

XXX

“Why, Caroline, you look pale,” Enzo comments joyfully as she trudges in the next morning. He stands over another body.

“Shut up,” she growls at him, dark circles under her eyes unnaturally pronounced. “Who’s that?” she gestures brusquely to the body.

“Are you fine?” he asks in concern. When Caroline ignores him, he explains about the body. “Tyler Lockwood, artist, notorious womanizer, despite his failing marriage to his wife. Poisoned.”

“And so…” she waits expectantly.

“Oh, right.” Enzo realizes after a moment that Caroline is referring to the crime. “It was the wife. They arrested her. Quite obvious, really.”

“Oh.” Caroline pouts. “Are you done with him?”

“You want his brain?” Enzo inquires innocently.

“Yes!”

A quick brain sandwich later, Caroline can feel her fingers twitching, the urge to grab a pencil and draw coming on her. She grabs a pen and a napkin and begins to sketch.

“Whoa!” Enzo exclaims as he stumbles by, carrying lab supplies. “Can you sketch me later?”

“Huh?” Caroline tears her attention away from her work. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Who is that, anyway?” He gestures to her napkin sketch which depicts an attractive man with tousled curls that Caroline knows to be sandy-blond, a wide nose, dimples, crimson lips, large eyes that should be a striking dark blue, and a chiseled jaw.

“What?” She stares at her sketch before realizing who she has sketched. “Someone I need to find.”


End file.
